


Where Soul Meets Body

by barelypink



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: A little bit hurt/comfort, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Car Accidents, David Rose is a ghost, Discussion of Death and Dying, Ghost Sex, M/M, No Major Character Death, Pining, Schitt's Creek Trick or Trick Fest 2020, Slow Burn, Stevie Budd for the win, but he's not quite dead yet, did I mention the ghost sex? because that's a thing that happens, halloween fic, i swear it's not that sad, paranormal/supernatural elements, patrick pov, sibling dynamics, toilet plunger banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:07:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27180848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barelypink/pseuds/barelypink
Summary: Patrick loves his new job at Rose Apothecary. The only problem is that the store — and by extension, Patrick — is being haunted by the ghost of David Rose. Now Patrick is on a mission to discover what happened to the store’s original owner and possibly reunite the beautiful ghost with his body. And maybe somewhere along the way, Patrick starts to fall for a man he can’t touch.It's a Schitt's Creek ghost/love story.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 112
Kudos: 243
Collections: Schitt's Creek Trick Or Treat





	1. you, lost and lonely

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SCTrickOrTreat](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCTrickOrTreat) collection. 



> This fic was heavily inspired by the movies _Just Like Heaven_ , _Heart and Souls_ , and _The Ghost and Mrs. Muir_ and hours and hours of time spent listening to both The Cure and Death Cab for Cutie. Title taken from the song "Soul Meets Body" by Death Cab and chapter titles from The Cure's "Just Like Heaven." 
> 
> A hearty thanks to Pants for beta help and for letting me fill up your inbox with fic recs so we can scream together about the astounding number of amazing fics out there. You're the best.

Patrick Brewer loved mornings at Rose Apothecary. The sun slanted in at just the right angle to set the subway tiles on the wall aglow and the blue bottles on the center table gleaming. The multi-colored hardwood floors looked warm and inviting, worn down by the soft tread of thousands of feet over the years. There was a sweet expectation, in that moment before he flipped the sign from “closed” to “open”, that brought with it something heady, something unknown. It filled Patrick with an excitement he couldn’t explain. You never knew who might walk through those doors, after all, the things they might buy, the tales they might tell.

The mornings also brought with them the ghost of David Rose.

//

It began like this. 

Patrick Brewer, aged thirty, had just broken it off with his fiancée and was ready to admit he needed to make some drastic changes in his life when he saw an advertisement on a local(ish) online job board. A small store a few hours away was in need of a general manager ASAP. The pay was...quite abysmal actually and the workload intense for one person, but the ad sounded desperate and, well, so was Patrick. 

He answered that day. 

By the end of the week, he’d packed up his car and moved to Schitt’s Creek. The tiny, dark-haired woman who showed him around was emotionless and unimpressed. 

“We’ve tried to keep it going as best we could,” Stevie said with tired eyes, “but I’ve my own motel to drive into the ground and school starts next week so Jocelyn has to go back to work. And the Ro— well, they aren’t in a position to help.” 

“What happened to the owner?” Patrick asked. He didn’t think it was an unreasonable question. But Stevie's face shuttered and looked pained. 

“He’s gone.” 

Patrick didn’t press for more. 

For all their effort, Rose Apothecary had an air of neglect about it. There was a fine layer of dust on the shelves and the books were a mess. (But Patrick didn’t think they’d ever been anything but that given the shoddy state of the spreadsheets.) The store needed a lot of help, but the business model was inventive and the products beautifully crafted and curated. Patrick knew he could do it, could make the store successful again, and he hadn’t felt that excited about anything in a long, long time. 

//

Patrick had already mapped out his timetable for bringing Rose Apothecary up to his standards quickly. He’d need to clean and inventory everything in the store and then comb through the vendor contracts to see which required updating and revising. He’d put in new orders for the products that needed replenishing and then start to source some new wares since fall was speedily on its way. He’d obviously need to build a new and superior spreadsheet to keep track of the store’s financials, but that wouldn’t be hard. First, though, he needed to familiarize himself with all the products already on the shelves in order to learn what each one of them was and what they were used for. A knowledgeable salesman was a better salesman. 

He picked up a big bottle on the front table labeled “Body Milk.”

“Huh,” he said to himself. “Does this need to be refrigerated?” He turned the bottle over to double check the label on the back.

“Refrigerated?” screeched an irritated voice behind him. “What do you think body milk is if not milk for your body?” 

Patrick turned around slowly. He knew the front door was locked and the sign clearly said “closed”. Maybe he’d left the back door open. The man — and it was a man — was tall and dark and staring intensely at Patrick. 

“Where did you come from?” Patrick asked hesitantly. 

“What do you mean? Where did _you_ come from?” the man responded insolently.

Patrick had had lots of practice dealing with rude customers and clients. He put on his most patient customer service voice. “I’m the new manager here. Stevie hired me.” 

“Stevie?” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Is this some sort of joke?”

“I mean, I hope not,” Patrick said. “Because then I’d be out of a job less than 24 hours after starting.” 

“She’s going to hear some very harsh words about this.” The man looked around with ravenous eyes, taking in every bottle, every basket, every candle, and hanging scarf. He paused in front of the lip balms, which were almost sold out. Patrick had already added “order more lip balms” on his to-do list in his neat and tidy capslock scrawl. He was about to tell the man so when he spun around to face Patrick. “You can never let the lip balms get so depleted! They’re a top seller. There are more in the back.” He stalked through the open curtain into the stockroom. 

Patrick was bewildered but followed behind the man, calling out: “I’ve looked. There aren’t any more! It’s already on my list of things to do.” 

But when Patrick made it into the stockroom, filled with its one small desk, stacks of teetering boxes, and no outside exits, the man was nowhere to be seen. 

//

Stevie dropped by that evening to check up on Patrick. She seemed to know a lot about the store even though she said she had never officially been an employee there. Just a friend of the owner who was now mysteriously “gone.” Patrick didn’t mention the strange man he’d seen that morning. Stevie had warned him that the town was full of meddlesome busybodies, so he figured it was best to just shrug it off and not make a big deal out of it. 

“I have an aggressive timeline for re-opening,” Patrick told Stevie as she aligned the labels to be perfectly straight. She seemed to think this was vitally important to the store’s overall aesthetic. “I don’t think we should delay, so I’ll open on Friday. I’ll learn the rest as I go along.” 

Stevie looked up from a bottle of toner. “You sure?” 

“Yes. The hardest bit will be doing some of the vendor pick-ups. I can schedule most of them for Mondays when the store is closed, but it would be helpful to have some help.” Patrick watched Stevie’s face cringe at the request. 

“I can...I’m sure we can find people to help,” she finally said. “There are a lot of people who would be willing to help.” 

“Why?” 

“What do you mean why? This is practically the only store in town. And everyone wants to see this place succeed because they….well, anyway. Let me know what days you need help.” 

“Great.” Patrick picked up his portfolio from beside the register. “I also wanted to know if I have your permission to start finding new products and vendors.” 

Stevie looked vaguely scandalized. “What’s wrong with the products already here?”

Patrick crossed his arms, considering the strange woman who was technically not his boss but who still could fire him if she thought he was doing a bad job running a small general store in a one stoplight town. “There’s nothing wrong with the products here. It has great stuff, but a store like this needs to constantly revitalize its product line to attract return customers. Besides, not all of the vendors will be able to produce the requisite amount of stock and some of the items are seasonal and it’s going to get cold soon. We can’t have half an empty store.” 

“David wouldn’t —” Stevie began and then stopped. 

Patrick immediately recognized the name. “Is this the David Rose who’s on all the vendor contracts and the business license?”

Stevie just nodded, lips tight and white. 

“Well, David would know that’s what needs to be done here.” 

Stevie exhaled. She looked troubled and so, so tired. “Okay. Bring in new products.”

Patrick hadn’t intended to pry. And he didn’t want to ask a question that would obviously be distressing to Stevie, but he thought he deserved to know since there was plainly something peculiar going on. “Stevie, is David coming back?” 

Stevie stared at him. “I don’t know.” She moved to the front of the store, clearly done with Patrick for the night, maybe for awhile. He almost didn’t hear what she said as she tugged the door open to leave. “He might not be coming back at all.” 

//

The man returned two days later. Patrick already had a few vendor pick-ups scheduled, but he needed to stop by the store first thing in the morning to grab his list and make sure there was space in the stock room for the incoming boxes. He was planning on re-opening the next day and he needed to manage his time efficiently. He was looking at his list as he emerged from the back room when an annoyingly familiar voice rang out. 

“Why are you still here?” 

Patrick sighed and looked up. The man had his hands on his hips and an impressive scowl on his face. “I still work here,” Patrick responded wearily. It was clear that this person was going to make Patrick’s job difficult, but Patrick could also admit that they hadn’t exactly gotten off on the right foot on Tuesday. And Patrick couldn’t afford to make enemies in a town so small. “I don’t think we were properly introduced,” he said, trying to sound conciliatory and pleasant. “I’m Patrick Brewer. And you are?” 

The man scrutinized Patrick, looking him up and down with barely veiled disdain before he sighed dramatically and answered. “David Rose. This is my store.” 

Patrick had not expected that. “Huh. Stevie said you were gone.” But David was standing right here. 

David looked affronted and a little chastened. “Don’t listen to Stevie. I wouldn’t abandon my store like that. I’m not like that anymore.” 

Patrick nodded slowly, feeling entirely unsettled and halfway disappointed. “Well, I look forward to working with you then,” he said as cheerfully as he could. 

Patrick took a moment to study David Rose. He was very good looking. That was an objective fact, Patrick thought. No one could possibly argue that someone so tall and dark and finely made didn’t fit the bill of “handsome.” He was dressed in a black sweater which was a bold choice for the last days of summer. He had on black jeans with some sort of attached apron, kilt, skirt-like thing. Patrick had never seen anyone who looked quite like David. Patrick wished suddenly that he hadn’t made such a disastrously bad first impression. Patrick was intrigued by David; maybe even a little bit attracted to him. 

David did not appear to have the same regrets. “Yeah. We’ll see about that,” he said snidely. He looked over Patrick’s shoulder and noticed the bare counter space next to the cash register. “Didn’t I already explicitly tell you we needed more lip balms!” 

“I was just on my way to pick up more.” Patrick waved his clipboard.

“Let me see that,” David said testily. He reached out for the clipboard to yank it out of Patrick’s grasp, but his hand went straight through it. He growled and tried again. And once again, his hand passed right through the clipboard and Patrick’s arm. Patrick felt his full body shiver like someone had just slid an ice cube down his back. 

David looked at Patrick with wide, panicked eyes. “Why can’t I touch you? What’s wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me!” Patrick exclaimed, completely and utterly mystified. “What’s wrong with you?”

David stomped through the store grabbing at bottles of toner and facial cleanser, lotion, and notepads and again and again, his hand passed right through them. When he finally stopped his increasingly manic rant, he was standing _in_ the center table. 

“What’s going on? What happened to me?” David cried plaintively. 

“I think…,” said Patrick carefully, trying to be as soothing and tactful as possible. “That you might be a ghost. Maybe?”

“A ghost?!” David shrieked. 

“It’s just a guess,” Patrick said quickly. “Do you see a bright light or anything?”

“What?” David looked about wildly. “There’s no light. There is no light!” 

“What’s the last thing you remember then?” 

“I was…” David trailed off. “I don’t know. I remember yelling at you for being in my store.” 

“That was two days ago. What do you do when you’re not here? What did you do yesterday?” 

“I don’t know.” David’s voice was quiet, full of panicked despair. 

“It’s okay, David. It’s okay. I’m going to help you.” Patrick held up the clipboard of vendor pick-ups. He was running way behind schedule now, but he hadn’t planned on dealing with a ghost’s identity crisis. But he had a tight schedule to keep. “I’m going to pick up these products so we can restock the lip balms, and I’ll ask around. I’ll find out what happened. Okay?” 

David looked at Patrick. His eyes were wide and full of confusion and fear. He nodded mutely, too overcome to speak. 

“Okay. I’ll see you in a bit then, David.” 

Patrick carefully closed the front door and locked it. He made sure the sign still read closed. When he looked back up, into the store, David was gone. A week in Schitt’s Creek and now he was seeing ghosts. Just what he needed, Patrick thought. What could possibly go wrong with that? 

//

As soon as Patrick got into his car, he did what any self-respecting man who had been visited by a ghost would do: he took out his phone and went to Google. He typed in David Rose's name and was surprised to find hundreds of articles pop up. There were dozens of images of David at various ages, but it was definitely his guy...or ghost...or whatever. 

Patrick hadn't been employee of the month at Rose Video #785 for three straight months back in high school to not know who Johnny Rose was and to know they'd lost their money some years back. But Rose wasn't a super uncommon name so Patrick had never thought to connect the two. But now he knew that David Rose was the eldest child of Johnny and Moira Rose, that he'd had a rather checkered past and lived a somewhat hedonistic lifestyle, and that he'd run an art gallery before the Roses' lives were upended. 

Some of the articles mentioned them moving to a small town in Ontario, but there had been no follow-up articles. Most didn't even name the town and the most recent one was almost two years old. And Patrick knew, from the business license, that Rose Apothecary had been incorporated six months ago. 

Patrick changed his search to "David Rose Schitt's Creek" and finally, on the second results page, a small news article from the _Elmdale Journal_ from two months ago popped up. Patrick scanned the article quickly with a growing sense of unease. 

David Rose and his sister Alexis had been in a car accident on a two lane highway just outside Elm Valley when a drunk driver had blown through a stop sign and T-boned their car on the passenger side. Alexis had been driving and walked away with some scrapes and bruises. David had been taken from the scene in critical condition. 

There was no follow-up article to say whether David had lived or died. 

//

After a frenetic morning of driving down dusty country lanes, Patrick returned in the late afternoon to an empty store. He'd always liked the quiet of the empty store before, but now it felt eerily wrong somehow. He’d asked all the vendors what they’d heard about David, but none seemed to know more than what Patrick had gleaned through Googling. None of them had been contacted by anyone from the store until Patrick had called earlier that week to place some rush orders.

Patrick propped open the back door and brought in all the boxes of inventory he'd just picked up. He took extra care over the lip balms, making sure they were neatly stacked in the same direction. He swept the floor and dusted the backs of each shelf with a long feather duster. He made things as clean and presentable as he possibly could for the store to reopen in the morning. 

David the Ghost did not reappear. 

//

When David showed up the following morning, wearing the same clothes as his last two visits, Patrick wasn’t surprised. He was mostly just relieved. David, however, still looked a bit shell-shocked, but he seemed to take comfort in the newly stocked bins of lip balm with their perfectly aligned labels. 

“You got a new flavor,” David said wistfully, pointing to a new stack of lip balms with a blush colored label. “Rose Hips. That’s a nice touch.” 

“Yeah,” Patrick said, feeling a slight blush of his own crawl up the back of his neck. He set down the box of organic soap he’d just brought out of the stockroom. “It felt like an appropriate choice.” Patrick paused and examined David as inconspicuously as he could. "I am glad to see you again.”

“Yeah,” said David faintly. “You’re the only one who can, I think. See me, I mean.” 

Patrick took a step toward David cautiously, like you might an untrained dog or lost child. He didn’t want to spook the ghost. “I found out a few things about you online.” 

“Well, the internet is a cesspool of information.” David’s eyes were brown and sad. Patrick could almost forget he was a ghost. He looked so solid and real.

“Well, there isn’t much about you since you moved here, apparently,” Patrick answered. “I found a few articles about you opening the store and then nothing until two months ago.” Patrick paused to see if David could predict what he was about to say, but David just kept looking at Patrick with steady eyes. “You were in a car accident. Your sister was driving.” 

“My sister?” he said, quiet and confused. 

“Alexis.” 

“Alexis?” David repeated. His mouth rounded on the vowels like his mouth was unused to forming the sound. “I don’t...I don’t remember.” 

“Hey,” said Patrick, gentling his voice into its most soothing tones. “It’s okay.” 

“So you're saying that my sister and I died in this car accident?”

Patrick hesitated for just a second, but it was enough for David’s eyes to widen and his mouth to drop into an “O” of shock, reading it as confirmation of his untimely demise. “No, David, no! The article only said you had been taken from the scene of the accident alive but in critical condition. Alexis was fine, no major injuries!”

“Okay,” David said. He crossed his arms and hugged himself tight. Patrick really wished he could touch David, offer him some small form of comfort, but he knew his hand would just go right through him. “Okay,” David repeated. “So there’s a chance I only _might_ be dead. Great. That’s just great.”

“I’m going to find out more,” Patrick promised hurriedly. “I just figured I would need to do it rather circumspectly or people might get suspicious. Stevie shuts down anytime I ask about you, so I don’t think I can get it from her, and I don’t know very many other people in town yet.” 

David paced up and down the honeyed boards of the floor. The morning light was streaming through the windows and refracting against the morning dust. It made David almost glow like something otherworldly.

“Maybe you’re the person assigned to me to help me fulfill my unfinished business before my spirit can pass on,” David suggested. His voice was definitely creeping into the “hysterical” territory. “Maybe there’s something I’m supposed to do before I walk into the light or whatever.” 

“Oh, so there’s a light now?” Patrick teased gently. It seemed to have been the right move. David gave him a truly annoyed glare, but his mouth ticked up at the corners. His shoulders seemed to relax just a bit too. “We don’t know that you’re dead, not for sure,” Patrick said carefully. 

“Knowing my luck, I’m definitely dead.” 

David sighed and walked toward the windows. He stared out at the empty streets of Schitt’s Creek and said nothing. His face, once so expressive, was wiped clean like a blank slate. Patrick watched David and willed himself to find the right combination of reassuring words to say to him, but eventually had to admit defeat. Instead, he decided to ready the till for opening the store. 

“The café,” David finally said a few moments later, his back still to Patrick.

“What?” Patrick asked, looking up from the register. 

“There are people who would know about me in the café.” 

“You sure?” 

“Yeah. Yes. I think so.”

“Okay. I’ll go tonight,” Patrick said. “But right now it’s time to open the store for business.” Patrick unlocked the front door and flipped the sign to “open”. He was ready for this. Even if he had a ghost for a coworker. But when he turned around, David was gone. 

He didn’t see him again for the rest of the day. 

// 

Rose Apothecary’s second slightly less grand re-opening was a success. Patrick ran himself ragged, answering questions and ringing up purchases and keeping a general eye on the products and the customers and restocking during the quiet moments. He’d only been in Schitt’s Creek for a week, and aside from Stevie, he hadn’t really talked to many people. He didn’t know how permanent his presence in Schitt’s Creek was going to be, after all, and he liked the chance to be anonymous for once. Everyone knew who he was back home; everyone knew his entire history. He liked being a mystery for once. But he was going to have to change that if he was going to get anyone to talk to him about David Rose. 

After counting out the register, updating his spreadsheets, and lightly sweeping and dusting, Patrick flipped the sign to “closed” and exhaled a sigh. It was time for some reconnaissance. He crossed the street to the café and squared his shoulders before entering. 

The café was the kind of derelict that seems intentional at first glance but upon further inspection is clearly the product of decades of neglect. Every tabletop, every chair, and every utensil seemed to be cracked, bent, or wobbly. The duct tape valiantly holding the vinyl seats of the booths together was fraying itself and everything gave off a veneer of stickiness. Patrick had been to bars that were worse but at least they had the good sense to be windowless and dark. 

Patrick scanned the dining room, taking in the early dinner rush patrons. One booth was occupied by a family with small children, a couple of older people were sprinkled throughout the tables. Patrick figured his best chance at talking to anyone was at the counter so he slid into a seat next to a middle-aged black woman wearing a jean jacket and a grimace. 

“Welcome to Café Tropicale!” said an excitable waitress from behind the counter. “I’m Twyla. Are you just passing through?” 

Patrick took the ridiculously large menu from Twyla and pasted on his best smile. “Actually, I just moved here.”

“Oh, that’s exciting. We don’t get a lot of new faces around here. Not since the Ro—” The woman sitting next to Patrick cleared her throat loudly and Twyla shut her mouth quickly. 

“Do you mean the Roses?” Patrick asked as nonchalantly as he could.

“And why do you want to know about the Roses?” The woman turned her wide, probing eyes on Patrick with evident distrust. 

The waitress’ eyes shifted to Patrick. “Are you a reporter? Because I’ve told all the other reporters I won’t say anything without a lawyer present.” Twyla breathed out the side of her mouth. “Except I don’t know any lawyers, so I’d just have to call my cousin’s boyfriend’s sister who’s a paralegal.” 

Patrick raised his hands in surrender. “I’m not a reporter. Or a lawyer or a paralegal. My name’s Patrick Brewer. I was hired by Stevie to run Rose Apothecary, but she wouldn’t tell me when the Roses would be getting back. It’s their store, isn’t it? David Rose is listed as the owner.” 

“Oh,” Twyla said, closing her lips tightly over her teeth. 

The woman beside him swiveled in her seat and looked Patrick up and down with clear disdain exactly like David had done. “Stevie said David was gone?” 

Patrick wasn’t sure how much to give away, but hedged his bets by telling the truth. He just decided to leave out the part where he’d met the ghost of David Rose and knew about the car accident already. “Stevie just said that he was gone and might not come back. Did he go back to New York or --?”

“You sign a contact?” the woman interrupted brusquely. 

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said, trying to come across as nice and polite although this woman was making it difficult. “Who are you?”

“Ronnie Lee, contractor and city councilwoman.”

“Well, it’s nice to make your acquaintance, Ms. Lee.” Patrick stuck out his hand but Ronnie merely looked at it in disgust. Clearly his good manners and charming smile were not going to get him anywhere with her. 

Ronnie cleared her throat and narrowed her eyes at Patrick instead. Twyla’s eyes flitted nervously between the two of them. 

Patrick shrugged, trying to appear unbothered. “No official contract, but I did promise Stevie I would run Rose Apothecary as long as she needed me to.” Patrick returned Ronnie’s steady glare. “I don’t break my promises.”

“We sure are glad to see the store open again. It’s been hard for Stevie and Jocelyn to manage it on their own.” 

“That’s what Stevie told me,” Patrick agreed, smiling at Twyla. He needed to get Ronnie out of here so he could talk to Twyla alone. She seemed like the type to drop confidential information without realizing it. 

“You just picked up and moved to a new town to take a job with no contract and no guarantee? For a bunch of strangers?” Ronnie asked. 

“I was looking to make a change,” Patrick admitted, not looking at her. “This seemed like a good opportunity to take some time to figure out what I wanted to do next.” 

Ronnie grunted but turned back to her coffee and pie. 

“I’ve only been here a week but the store...it’s something special,” Patrick said. He thought he was just saying it to win them over, get them to spill some details, but he realized once he’d said it that it was true. Rose Apothecary was beautiful and unique and truly something he would have wanted to be a part of under different circumstances. “I kinda hoped I might get to stay for a little while. So yeah, you could say I’m a little curious about the Roses and if I’ll get to keep my job.” 

Twyla seemed to melt at his confession, but Ronnie only scowled deeper. 

“The Roses are still here,” Twyla blurted out and then scrubbed vigorously at the counter with her ratty dish towel, not meeting his or Ronnie’s eyes. “But it’s not their store; it’s just David’s.”

Ronnie sighed, but didn’t glare at Twyla the way Patrick had expected her to. “David was in a car accident almost two months ago,” she admitted.

Patrick swallowed around the tender lump forming in his throat. “Did he die?” 

Ronnie exhaled through her nose. She resembled a rather gruff bulldog. “No. But he’s in a coma.” 

Patrick had hoped this was a possibility; in fact, it was probably the best case scenario, but that still didn’t stop his stomach from twisting into knots. It meant David wasn’t really a ghost, or was maybe only half a ghost. There was a chance he could still wake up. But Patrick was also pretty sure that the longer a person was in a coma, the less likely they were to wake up. Which was the worst case scenario. “He’s been in a coma this whole time?” Patrick managed to ask. 

“Yeah,” Ronnie said. 

“What hospital is he at? Would the Roses be willing to talk to me?”

Ronnie stood up then, dropping a few bills on the countertop. Her razor sharp eyes drilled into Patrick’s and he felt pinned, under inspection. He didn’t dare breathe. “You leave the Roses alone,” she said threateningly, index finger pointed at his face. “They’ve been through enough.” Her nostrils flared before she turned on her heel.

Twyla tried to give Patrick an encouraging smile as they watched Ronnie stomp out of the café. 

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Twyla said consolingly. “Everyone in town just took it pretty hard, is all.” Twyla leaned in, elbows on the counter. “David is at the Elmdale Regional Hospital.”

Patrick exhaled slowly. It wasn’t much, but it was something. “Thanks, Twyla.” 

“Sure thing,” she said, straightening up with a smile. “Now, can I interest you in a Meadow Harvest smoothie today?”

// 

Patrick burst into the store the next morning, anxious to tell David what he learned from Twyla and Ronnie. But the store was still and quiet. Patrick sighed and went into the back room to put down his lunch bag and coat. He grabbed the cash from the safe in order to fill the register and nearly dropped the bag of change when he walked out and saw David glowering at him with his arms crossed. 

Definitely not a friendly ghost today. 

“What are the toilet plungers doing out here?” David asked icily, pointing at the offending items. Patrick had decided to move a few of the more popular household items from their exile in the back to the front yesterday during one of the lulls in customers. People needed those items and wouldn’t they buy more of them if they could find them?

“People need toilet plungers.”

“Yes, but do you have to assault their eyes right from the moment they enter the store?” David asked huffily. His voice has risen nearly a full octave in consternation like a squawking rooster.

“They were completely hidden away in the back before. No one could find them.”

“Because putting them out here is incorrect!” David insisted with emphatic hand gestures. 

“I sold two of them yesterday,” Patrick said with ill-disguised triumph. “And the mark-up on them is actually very good.” 

“It’s not correct!” David repeated. He seemed to be expending great effort not to yell but Patrick could see David’s hands curling into fists at his sides. It was probably a bad idea to troll a ghost, but, well, Patrick had never been able to stop himself with the living so why start now with the nearly dead?

“I was thinking of putting some other stuff up here too,” Patrick continued as if David hadn’t spoken. “Maybe a huge pyramid of toilet paper. What do you think?” Patrick flashed a smile at David’s face. David had never looked so white for all that he was a ghost. 

“I don’t like you right now.” 

Patrick smirked. “Oh, so you like me sometimes?”

“I did not say that.”

“No, but you implied it by saying that right now you don’t like me which means that other times you do like me.” 

David groaned. “I can’t believe Stevie gave _you_ the keys to my store.”

“Well, if you hate the toilet plungers being there so much, just move them,” Patrick said innocently. He opened up the till and began to count out the coins. 

When he looked up again, David was staring at Patrick, stone faced. “You know I can’t move them.”

“Well, then,” Patrick said with a satisfied grin, closing the register with a resonant ding. “I guess they stay.” 

“I take it back,” David said, hands on his hips, a comical grimace on his face. “I don’t like you at all. Any of the times!”

“That’s too bad,” Patrick said with feigned distress. “You were my first friend here.” 

“Well, don’t make me feel bad for you!” David whirled around as Patrick moved past him to flip over the open sign. “Your only friend is a ghost. That’s just sad.” 

“Ooh, would we call you a ghost if you’re not technically dead?” Patrick turned back to face David and his breath caught in his throat as he saw the way the light surrounded David like a halo, lighting him up from behind. Maybe David wasn’t a ghost. Maybe he was actually an angel. Patrick coughed to cover up his awkwardness, to pretend he hadn’t just been staring at David. “So I was thinking, in the interest of helping you to not be a half-dead ghost anymore, that we need to understand the parameters of your spectral powers. Are you tied to this location? Are you tied to me? I’ve never seen you when other people are around. Do we have to be alone for you to appear? Can you visit anyone else?”

“I’m...not sure,” David said slowly. He was making a valiant attempt to mask his confusion and discomfort at being so powerless and uncertain in his new realm of existence. "And what do you mean by half-dead?"

“Do you remember being anywhere else? Visiting anyone else besides me?” Patrick asked, ignoring David's more pertinent question. 

“I don’t think so,” David said. “I can remember all the times I’ve seen you, but I don’t recall seeing anyone else.” David laughed wryly to himself. “You’d think if I were to haunt anyone, it’d be Stevie. She actually deserves it.” 

Patrick had only talked to Stevie a few times now, but he didn’t necessarily disagree with David. Patrick tried to press the corners of his mouth down, but he was sure it still looked like he was smiling. “I also only ever see you in the morning. Do you have any control over when you show up?” 

“Maybe,” David said. “I just...appear. I’m not sure how it’s controlled or if my will has anything to do with it.” 

“Could you try to come back this evening, after the store is closed?”

David looked at Patrick like he had asked him to tap dance naked on the store room floor. “I guess I can try.” 

“Good. Then we need to see if you can leave the building. Maybe you just need to be with me. We’ll test it out.” 

“Why? Why does any of that matter?” David asked. 

“Do the names Twyla and Ronnie mean anything to you?”

“Ronnie is on Town Council. She helped me with some of the renovations in the store,” David said. “She’s no nonsense, but she likes me.”

“Yeah, she was very protective of you,” Patrick admitted. “She did not like me at all. What about Twyla?”

“Twyla works at the café. Very sweet, open-minded, a tad gullible. Alexis is friends with her.” 

“I met them at the café last night, after I closed the store. They told me some stuff.” Patrick stepped closer to David. He'd never thought he was a touchy-feely guy, but all he wanted to do was touch David. “You’re in a coma. At the Elmdale Regional Hospital. You're not dead.”

“Oh.” David said. The sound made Patrick's heart twist like a sponge being drained of all its water.

“Yeah. So the best I can figure is we need to get your —” Patrick waved at David’s whole...presence “— spirit back in your body so you can wake up. So we need to get you into your room at the hospital.”

“And you’d help me with that?” David sounded awed, like no one had ever offered to do anything nice for him just because. “I’m a complete stranger.”

“Technically, I think you’re my boss,” Patrick said with a teasing shrug. “And you’re not a stranger.”

“Oh, so you actually think we’re friends?” David asked, and Patrick thought he sounded a bit hopeful. 

“Yeah,” Patrick said with a slow smile. “I think we are.”

// 

Patrick lingered over the till at the end of the day and swept the floor with slow, methodical strokes, trying to stretch out the time as long as possible. Patrick wanted to give David plenty of opportunity to reappear before he admitted defeat and went home to his lonely apartment for the night. David never materialized right in front of Patrick, he realized, so he made plenty of trips into the backroom just to give David more opportunities to materialize into existence. He cleaned the bathroom and even rearranged the toilet plungers so they weren’t so obtrusive to the eye. He thought David would like that. But it didn’t really matter, because there was still no David. 

When he could think of no other ways to prolong his time at the store, Patrick flicked off all the lights except for the ones right behind the cash and went to collect his lunch bag, coat, and keys to lock up. Despite hoping for David Rose’s appearance every minute for the last hour, Patrick was still somehow startled to step out behind the curtain and see a bewildered-looking David standing next to the candles. 

“You made it back,” Patrick said, breathless with excitement. 

“Hi,” David replied softly. He was wearing the same outfit he always wore whenever he appeared — that never seemed to change — but he looked different at night, softer somehow, than he did bathed in the morning sun. It was good. Different, but good. “I can’t really tell the passing of time and I don’t exactly have a watch, so.” 

“Close enough. This is good!” Patrick enthused, feeling a blind sort of optimism he hadn’t expected.

“Is it?” David winced and wrung his hands together. Patrick was rather enthralled by the elasticity of David’s face, the way it could form itself into so many shapes. He wondered if David’s face was always like that, or if it was just a product of being divorced from his actual body. 

Patrick took a cautious step toward David. “Yeah. I think so.”

David smiled. It was a shy and tentative thing, but Patrick felt bolstered by it nonetheless.

“Okay. What’s the next step of your grand plan to reunite me with my body?”

“Right. Now we see if you can leave the store.” Patrick turned off the lights and walked to the front door illuminated by the flickering street lamp outside. He held open the door and gestured for David to walk through. David’s face scrunched in annoyance, clearly unimpressed with Patrick’s plan but he finally heaved a sigh and walked through the door. When he didn’t disappear, Patrick cheered in silent triumph and then quickly shut the door and locked it. 

“What now?” David asked. 

“Now we go to the cafe and see if anyone else notices you. Or if you disappear around other people.” Fall had come early and the air was chilly as they stepped into the street; it bit at Patrick’s cheeks and he wrapped his coat tighter around his body. David, in nothing more than his sweater, seemed completely unaffected.

“Do you feel the cold?” Patrick asked curiously. 

David didn’t look at him. “I feel nothing.” 

Patrick tried to think of something to say to that, but then it didn’t matter; the time for comforting words had passed and they were at the doors of the café. Patrick pulled them open and let David walk through first again, and he pretended that David couldn’t see the soft, aching expression on his face. 

The café wasn’t bursting with people, but it was fuller than Patrick had seen it on his few previous visits. Patrick meant to head straight to the counter to order something to go, but David was rooted to a spot in the middle, staring fixedly at a booth along the back wall where an older couple sat across from a carelessly dressed younger woman. Patrick could see the darkened bags under the girl’s eyes made more stark by the height of her cheekbones and the looseness of her messy bun. The couple were impeccably dressed in black but their expressions and whole presence was woebegone and dripping with desolation. 

No one noticed David. 

Patrick left David to his staring and approached the counter. Twyla greeted him quietly, her eyes flicking distractedly to the back booth. Well, thought Patrick grimly, at least they knew David could be around other people without disappearing. At least they knew David was only visible to Patrick.

“Hi, Twyla,” Patrick said, sliding onto one of the counter chairs. It squeaked and groaned under Patrick’s weight and he tried not to feel a twinge of embarrassment about it. “Can I just get a BLT and fries to go? Thanks.” 

Twyla nodded sympathetically, as if she knew a Greek tragedy was happening right there on the floor of the café, and put in Patrick’s order. Patrick tried to look unconcerned, but he watched David and his oblivious family out of the corner of his eye, his breath catching in his throat with every flicker of pain and longing that flared across David’s face. 

It felt like very little time had passed before Twyla was pushing a bag full of styrofoam containers into his hands and wishing him a good night. Patrick thanked her, shrugged back on his coat, and headed toward the door. He detoured through the tables and whispered gently to David as he passed the spot where he still stood: “Come on, David. Time to go.” 

David blinked and followed Patrick out the door. They were both silent as they crossed the street and walked along the side of the store where the flower beds were tangled with weeds and the flowers wilting or dead.

“I don’t live very far away,” Patrick said as they approached his car in the back lot behind the store. “We can just walk there or we can see if you can ride in the car with me. That might be the best way to get you to the hospital, so we should probably try it out sooner or later.” 

“Please tell me your apartment is nicer than this,” David said. He seemed to find Patrick’s silver Corolla less than impressive. 

“Well, it is slightly bigger than the car, but not by much,” Patrick said sheepishly. He walked to the passenger side and opened the door for David. He didn’t think about how weird he must look to anyone passing by, opening his door like a gentlemen on a date with air. “You want to try this?”

David looked bleakly into Patrick’s car, but clenched his jaw in determination and nodded. “As long as I don’t just fall right through the seat.” 

David carefully maneuvered himself inside the car, but the seat did hold him and he didn’t disappear in the time that it took Patrick to jog behind the car and then slide into the driver’s seat. He was unaccountably excited to have a ghost riding shotgun. 

The roads were dark and the car was silent as Patrick drove. 

“So,” Patrick said, eyes fixed ahead. “That was your family. At the café.”

“Yes.”

“You must miss them a lot.” 

David looked out the side window and sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He turned to look at Patrick. His eyes looked bright and ethereal in the dim lights. “Not yet.” 

“Okay,” Patrick said and pulled into his apartment complex’s parking lot. “Whatever you want, David.” 

David was stoic as Patrick ushered him into his small studio apartment on the fourth floor. Patrick hadn’t had much time to decorate the place yet. He had been lucky to get a place to himself at all. Schitt’s Creek had very low inventory and this place just happened to open up at the last minute. David inspected the apartment in silent judgment, peering at every corner, scrutinizing the closet space, and leaning down to examine the two framed photos Patrick had set on the desk under the window. 

“How do you like living in Schitt’s Creek?” David asked. 

“It’s not bad,” Patrick said as he set his dinner on the table and began to unload the containers. “I grew up in a suburb of Toronto, but I’ve always liked the idea of small towns. I like that you can get to know your neighbors.” 

David snorted. “You say that like it’s a good thing.” 

“Did you prefer living in New York?” Patrick asked without thinking. He paused and turned to face David who was looking at him with a questioning stare on his face. “I read some articles about you when I was trying to learn what happened to you. I know you didn’t always live here.” 

“Well, I should hope that was obvious,” David said. “And of course I miss New York — who wouldn’t? — but I don’t exactly hate it here.” 

“So you do prefer living here?” 

“I wouldn’t go that far,” David said quickly. “I just...I had Stevie. I had my store. My family is complicated at the best of times, but I don’t know.” 

“You were happy.” 

“Maybe,” David said with a wistful shrug. “It started to feel like maybe I was, yeah.” 

“It must be hard to have that taken away.”

David shrugged again. “You think it will work?” 

“What?” 

“Waking me up.” 

Patrick looked up from where he was squeezing ketchup onto his fries. “I don’t know. But we have to try, right?” Patrick pointed down at his sandwich. “Do you mind if I eat? I figure you don’t….”

David waved a hand at him. “I don’t feel hungry. Which is weird.” He smiled. “I’m usually always hungry.” 

“Noted.” Patrick dug into his dinner and David asked a few questions about the people in his photos — his family and a few cousins — and what he did when he wasn’t at work. Before long, Patrick realized that they’d been talking for several hours and it was nearing his bedtime; Patrick was exhausted. David looked as perfect as he ever did; not a yawn or bleary eye to his name.

“Could I watch your TV, Patrick?” David asked just as Patrick was trying to slip into the bathroom to put on his pajamas.

“Sure. That's fine by me.”

“You’re going to have to turn it on for me.” David said and demonstrated to Patrick how his hand just swiped fruitlessly through the black remote. And yet, David could sit on the couch without falling through. Ghost physics made no sense to Patrick. “This is very strange. You do realize how strange this whole conversation is, right?” 

“No,” Patrick said with a smile, picking up the remote. “I’m sure someone somewhere has had a stranger conversation with a half-dead ghost before.”

Patrick got David set up watching _Downton Abbey_ and then finally escaped to the bathroom to change and brush his teeth. When he emerged, David was still sitting on the couch, enthralled by the show. 

“I’m going to head to bed,” Patrick said, “but I’m a heavy sleeper. You can keep watching. The episodes will just keep playing and you shouldn’t have to touch anything.” 

“Okay,” David said. His eyes were sharp in the grey light, like cut glass.

“And in the morning, if you’re still here, we try to get into your hospital room. I checked their website and visiting hours start at 9am.” 

“What about the store?” 

“It’s Sunday, so it doesn’t open until noon.” 

“Right.” 

“So I’ll see you in the morning?” Patrick asked hopefully. 

David attempted to smile, but it didn’t really work. “Yup.” 

“Night, David.”

David's voice was soft and warm. “Good night, Patrick.” 

// 

Patrick Brewer had a precise and nearly infallible internal clock, so much so that he rarely, if ever, needed to set an alarm. When he blinked awake at exactly 6:35 am the next morning, he was relieved and just a little surprised to find David Rose staring at him.

“You are a very quiet sleeper,” David said in lieu of a greeting. 

“Is that a bad thing?” Patrick asked, pushing himself onto his elbows and into a more upright position. 

“You barely move at all,” David said, clearly perturbed. “It’s unnatural.” 

“Says the half-ghost.” 

“And on that point,” David continued, “why the hell can I sit on things like this chair and not fall through, but I can’t touch anything?”

“I think it’s too early in the morning to understand the metaphysical reality of incorporeal beings.” Patrick scratched his head and yawned. “Good morning, by the way.”

David mmphed and looked away. Patrick couldn’t help smiling. 

“Did you stay the whole night?” 

David’s shook his head. “No. I’m not...I can’t be sure, but I don’t think so. Time works differently for me somehow, but I don’t think I’ve been here long. Just long enough to begin to worry that you died in your sleep and I’d need to find another person to haunt.” 

“That’s good,” Patrick said. He threw the covers off himself and swung his legs out of the bed. “Not just because I’m not dead and you don’t have to find a new person to torment. But now we’ve proven that you have a lot more range of movement and that you have some amount of control of when and where you appear.” 

“I always thought death was going to be more fun than this,” David whined. 

“Ah,” said Patrick with an excited glint. “But you’re not dead...yet.”

David rolled his eyes, but he still smiled. 

“I’m gonna hop in the shower and then we can head to the hospital. Time to reunite your spirit with your body.” 

//

Elmdale Regional Hospital was not a very large hospital, but it had the same astringent smell, the same squeaky linoleum floors, and the same staff of overworked and underpaid nurses like every other hospital Patrick had been to. Given the nature and severity of David’s injuries, Patrick had been a tad surprised that David hadn’t been moved to a larger hospital with a better intensive care unit. But Patrick supposed a better hospital was hours away and the Roses didn’t want to be so far from David. 

David was quiet as they made their way to the front desk, taking everything in with quick, calculating eyes. They were directed to the fourth floor where the ICU was located. Patrick snuck furtive glances at David as they followed the signs to the elevator, and tried to remember what life was like before David Rose had taken over it. It had definitely been a lot more boring. 

The elevator was empty when they stepped onto it and Patrick jabbed the number 4 button with anxious energy. “Do you really think this is going to work?” David asked uneasily, tracking the slow progress of the elevator as it jerked its way from the second to third floor. 

“I don’t know,” Patrick admitted. He felt like looking at David would jinx the whole operation. “But it’s worth a try at least.”

The bell dinged and the elevator doors shuddered open. “Well,” said Patrick, squaring his shoulders, “here goes nothing.” 

It became immediately clear that the ICU nurse was not a person to be trifled with. She took one look at Patrick with his ingratiating smile and shook her head. Patrick had cultivated a nice guy persona and it had hardly ever failed him before but Nurse Amber did not suffer fools, apparently. 

“No,” she said simply when Patrick requested permission to visit David Rose. 

“But I am a close personal friend.”

“If you’re not on the list, you’re not _that_ close.” 

“She’s snippy,” David said, eyes trained on her. “I like her. Reminds me of Stevie.” She reminded Patrick a lot of Ronnie, actually. Neither comparison boded well for him. 

Patrick tried to make eye contact with Nurse Amber. Sustained and focused eye contact always wore people down eventually, Patrick had discovered. Rachel had told him once his eyes were very loud. “David was my _special_ friend, if you catch my drift.”

David snorted at that. Patrick ignored him.

“Then why did it take you so long to come visit your very special friend?” Nurse Amber asked disdainfully. Patrick did not appreciate her attitude. It was probably a good thing most of her patients were too comatose to complain about her bedside manner. 

“The woman makes an excellent point,” David responded, pointing a finger at her. Patrick scowled at David and attempted to give the nurse another winning smile. 

“I’ve been out of town,” Patrick said. “On business. And our relationship was pretty new. His family didn’t know about us yet.” 

“Well, if she knows my family at all,” David said with a snort, “she’d know that is a complete lie because it is impossible to keep anything a secret in my family.” 

Nurse Amber's resolve seemed to be cracking, but not enough to bend the rules for Patrick. “I still need permission from his next of kin before I can let you into his room.” 

“Sure,” Patrick said, trying to be sweetly agreeable even though he was feeling incredibly frustrated. “Of course. I know you’re just doing your job, but can you at least tell me what room he’s in?” The nurse gave him a sour look. “I just want to have some flowers delivered to his room.” Patrick thought that sounded like a reasonable lie. David, at least, looked amused. 

Nurse Amber pursed her lips and gave him a very unimpressed look. “You don’t need his room number for that. Just send them to the ICU. They’ll get here.” 

“Please,” Patrick pleaded. “Just humor me here.” 

She huffed out a breath and looked around to see if anyone else was nearby. “Fine. But you didn’t hear it from me.” She grabbed a clipboard and double-checked a sheet. “He’s in room 402.” 

“Thank you, Nurse Amber. I really appreciate it.” 

There was a tiny waiting room across the hall but not in direct line of sight of the nurse’s desk and Patrick nodded at David to follow him in there. It was thankfully empty and Patrick sank into one of the cracked plastic chairs. You’d think a waiting room could have sprung for more comfortable seats. 

“Well, that went well,” David said drily, dropping into the chair next to Patrick. 

“It doesn’t make much sense to try to force my way in,” Patrick said as covertly as possible. He didn’t want anyone to see him whispering to no one and think he had wandered in from the psych ward. “Can you walk through doors, do you think?”

David glanced over his shoulder at the automatic double doors that led to the ICU. They looked like pretty heavily guarded doors. You needed an ID badge to get through them and there was a security guard lingering near the area. “And you said a discussion of ghost physics was unnecessary.” 

“Sure, this morning when it was more of a philosophical discussion. But right now passing through walls would be a really handy trick. Otherwise, we’re going to have to convince someone with an ID badge to open all the doors for us.” 

“I guess I just need to try,” David said with a sigh. He stood up, squared his shoulders, and walked straight at the half wall/half glass window separating the waiting room from the hallway. He walked through easily enough and turned and stared at Patrick through the glass with wide eyes. He walked back through. 

“Okay,” Patrick said and wet his lips with his tongue. “So we’re here and your body is here, in room 402. All you need to do is walk through those doors and into your room and maybe that’s all that needs to happen.” 

David looked at Patrick. His face was lined with fear and uncertainty but underneath that, a sliver of burgeoning hope. Patrick wanted more than anything to be able to reach out and touch him. 

“You owe me the biggest fucking flower arrangement ever,” David said. His voice sounded raw and ragged.

“David, I…” Patrick began. What could he possibly say that would make even the smallest bit of sense? How could he say he’d miss him when they’d only just met a week ago? That he wanted more time with him even though it would mean he stayed trapped between worlds?

“No roses. That’s way too cliché.” 

Patrick swallowed down the lump in his throat. “I’ll do my best.”

David looked at him. “So I guess this is good-bye?”

“Well, hopefully not,” Patrick said. “I’ll still be running your store until you’re ready to come back. We’ll meet again there.” 

“I hope I remember,” David whispered. “I’d hate to forget haunting you.” He stood up and Patrick followed. They walked out of the little waiting room and stood in the hallway together, staring at the double doors. 

“Good luck,” Patrick whispered.

“Yeah,” David said. He turned to look at Patrick, just briefly, one small smile creeping up the corner of his mouth, and then he strode through the doors and was gone. Patrick watched for several minutes just in case David appeared again. He hoped there would be some sort of signal that something was happening behind the closed doors: alarm bells, beeping machines, the sound of rushing feet. But everything was quiet. Everything was normal. 

Patrick cleared his throat and headed back toward the elevators. He’d see David again, he told himself. Nurse Amber shook her head at him as he passed by. “You’re a weird one,” she said, one eyebrow raised. 

Patrick laughed. “Yeah. I get that a lot.” 

He rode the elevator and paid the outrageous hospital parking fees, and drove back to Schitt’s Creek in silence, letting the roar of the tires drown out the thoughts in his head. Surely David waking up would be big news. It would spread through town quickly and he’d hear about it. 

Patrick got back with plenty of time to open the store but he moved slowly, without any of the excitement he’d felt before. The sunlight was bright and radiant as it poured through the windows, casting the whole shop in hues of gold and brown and sand. And though the shop was filled with customers throughout the day, it felt unbearably lonely and desolate without the ghost of David Rose. 

//

The store was closed on Mondays and Patrick felt listless and distracted as he ran errands and attempted to unpack more of his apartment. He wasn’t even sure why he was being so melodramatic. He’d done a good deed, after all. He’d always liked doing good deeds before. He received no texts from Stevie letting him know his services wouldn’t be needed anymore. By the time it was dark outside his windows again, Patrick went to the café where Twyla happily served him at the counter. She babbled on about local news but said nothing about miracles or David Rose. 

By Wednesday, Patrick was convinced he had imagined the whole thing. He was stressed, Patrick told himself, and a lot had changed for him in a very short period of time. It was totally natural to have hallucinations of unspeakably beautiful half-dead ghosts. That was just a thing that happened to people. Patrick couldn’t find it in himself to regret it, though, even if it had been all in his head. 

Until Thursday, when David Rose returned. 


	2. you, strange as angels

It was the calm right before the lunchtime rush. Patrick had stepped into the back to hurriedly eat his lunch. He knew the bell would alert him to any customers, but he still tried to eat quickly, barely tasting the sandwich he had packed for himself that morning. He decided to save his chips and apple for later in the day; he always felt a dip in his energy by the mid-afternoon. When he stepped back out, David was standing in the middle of the store. The bell had never sounded, but Patrick’s breath still caught in his throat with the wild hope that this was the real David, whole and solid and composed of six feet of touchable skin. 

“It didn’t work,” David said. 

Still a ghost then. Still no touching then.

“I tried everything,” David went on, his voice flat and emotionless. “But nothing worked. I stayed there for awhile before I decided to give up. I got bored of having no one to talk to, so here I am.” 

“I’m so sorry, David.” 

“Yeah, well,” David lifted a shoulder as if to shrug but the weight of the movement seemed to slow him down. But a smile still crept across his face, sly and unknowable. “I did notice that my _special friend_ never sent me the flowers he promised.”

“Oh,” Patrick flushed and looked away. He felt embarrassed because he really had meant to send flowers. Only he’d thought it would be pointless if David had woken up and was no longer in the hospital. “I’m sorry about that...about pretending to be your boyfriend or whatever. We never talked about it and I shouldn’t have assumed…”

“Assume whatever you want,” David said. “I’m open to all the possibilities. It was nice of you to, you know, set aside your rampant heterosexuality on my account.” 

“Well, I’m not exactly one hundred percent straight.” 

David’s eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”

“Like maybe the opposite, actually?”

“Are you asking me? Because I totally thought you were straight. You wear mid-range denim.”

“It’s something of a new realization for me. I’m still getting used to saying it out loud.” 

“Well, if you can’t confide in a ghost, who can you confide in?” 

They smiled at each other, and Patrick felt a perverse desire to laugh swell in his chest. Who, indeed. God, he’d missed David. 

“I am really sorry it didn’t work,” Patrick said sincerely. “What do you want to do now?” 

“I don’t know,” David said glumly. “There probably isn't anything to do. Just wait for me to wake up or….” He trailed off, unwilling to finish the sentence. “In the meantime, I’m going to help you not run my store into the ground. Starting with these fugly red-handled brooms here.” 

“But David,” Patrick protested, with the hint of a grin, “the brooms look so good next to the toilet plungers.” 

David gave Patrick the iciest, most evil glare. “You can pick one item to stay in the front if you must. The rest of the cleaning supplies need to go into the backroom where they belong.” 

“Why would I do that?” Patrick asked cockily. It wasn’t like David could move them himself, after all. Patrick had all the power here and maybe it was a bit shameful to taunt a ghost this way, but Patrick had always had a rather obnoxious competitive streak. He couldn’t help himself. 

“If you don’t want to do it, fine, but I won’t tell you the trick to get Brenda to throw in a free case of hand cream with every order.” David crossed his arms. 

Patrick stepped out from behind the cash. “I’ll just go move those brooms then.” 

And so began the weirdest professional relationship of Patrick’s life. It wasn’t bad working with a ghost, even if Patrick had to do all the literal heavy lifting. David didn’t have a great head for accounting and he hadn’t kept anything resembling a decent spreadsheet, but he made up for it for having a dizzyingly accurate sense of the type of products people wanted and sniffing out the people who could provide them. He remembered everything about every product he carried in the store and knew exactly how to coax each vendor into even better agreements. 

With David’s help, Patrick was able to negotiate new contracts and expand pre-existing ones. With fall underway and Christmas on the horizon, they expanded their line of candles and stocked up on new scarfs and mittens. Thankfully, not all of them were knitted from cat fur. They made Patrick sneeze something awful. Mr. Hockley’s wife created a special hot cocoa blend just for their store to complement her husband’s selection of teas. The store saw a steady stream of daily customers and Patrick was almost finished building out the online portal which David had started to construct but never finished before his accident. 

David was almost always there, even when there were customers in the store, though he had a habit of popping in and out throughout the day. Patrick had to remind himself not to respond to David’s constant commentary or laugh at his observations while there were other people around or else start to have other people think he was a bit touched in the head. It grew increasingly difficult because David had a real knack for making Patrick blush or crack up. More than one customer had caught him supposedly talking to himself and had side-eyed him hard before slipping out of the store without buying a thing.

David often visited Patrick at home too. Patrick didn’t mind. He knew David had to be lonely with only Patrick for company and was probably terrified that he might never wake up again. They talked a lot and Patrick got used to falling asleep to the sound of one of David's period dramas: Patrick warm and snug under layers of blankets and David perched on the edge of Patrick’s sofa, nearly translucent in the reflected glow of the television, both of them yearning for impossible things. 

// 

“I’m so sick of this outfit,” David said out of nowhere, plucking at the sleeves of his black sweater. It had been nearly a month since his non-resurrection and reappearance at Rose Apothecary and he had been in a tetchy mood all day. “If I ever wake up, I’m burning this outfit. I don’t care that I can’t afford Neil Barrett pieces anymore.”

Patrick basically wore the same thing everyday, just traded out a dirty blue button down for a clean one, so it barely even crossed Patrick’s mind that David appeared day after day, night after night in the same exact outfit. Patrick really liked David’s clothes for all that they had originally mystified him. He liked the length of David’s thighs, all their power and grace, accentuated by the skirt that circled around them. He liked the black sweater that clung to his shoulders and arms and the lines that cascaded down David’s chest like a ladder Patrick wanted to climb. 

“Is that the…” Patrick started and then hesitated. When David raised an impatient eyebrow at him, he went on. “Is that the outfit you were wearing the day of the accident?” 

David looked down at himself, considering, as if he’d suddenly forgotten what he was wearing. “I can’t remember. It must have been.” David looked at himself in the small mirror above one of the apothecary tables. (David had avoided looking in all reflective surfaces for a long time for fear that he wouldn’t be able to see himself which led to a very long argument about the difference between ghosts and vampires that ended with Patrick chasing David around with a hand-held mirror until David finally stopped dead in his tracks and caught a glance of himself in the mirror as Patrick’s hand whooshed right through him. It had not been one of their finer moments.) “This used to be one of my favorite outfits. It always made me feel...optimistic.” 

Patrick’s eyes softened. He wanted to say something comforting or hopeful, but then David said, “They probably had to cut it off me in the hospital. I’ll probably never see it again, anyway. No sense getting maudlin about it.” 

Patrick hadn’t known what to say to that. Offering condolences for the loss of David’s sweater felt too much like offering condolences for David’s life. Patrick wasn’t ready to accept that David might be slipping closer to death than to life. But with each passing day that David traipsed through the store as a not-quite-dead ghost, Patrick found it harder to remember that David’s body was still lying in a tiny hospital room miles away, getting air pumped into his lungs by a machine. 

// 

When it became apparent that Patrick could handle the store without her input, Stevie had happily stopped dropping by. She sent perfunctory texts every few days just to check in, but for the most part, Patrick was left to his own devices. Well, unless you counted his ghostly overlord, which Patrick didn’t. David, for his part, remained extremely tight lipped about his family, which seemed to also include Stevie. He didn’t want to talk about them; he didn’t want to visit them again. Patrick hadn’t pushed it. He could admit that he enjoyed spending time with David and he liked having him all to himself, such as it was. 

Patrick had started to make some inroads with the townspeople though. Ronnie still acted extremely suspicious of him, but Twyla seemed to really like him. She always greeted him warmly every time he stopped by the cafe, and she had started popping into the Apothecary just to talk to Patrick on her breaks. And she always bought something small like a lip balm or a tin of breath mints before leaving. There were a few other regulars who came in and Patrick knew them by name now. It made him feel like he could have a home in this town; that he really could build a new community in a place where he once knew no one. 

Despite David's misgivings, Patrick had insisted that the store needed at least one evening a week that they stayed open later. It brought in a lot of extra business, but Patrick hadn’t gloated about it to David...much. It was nearing closing time on Thursday night when a group of women flooded through the door, carrying on a conversation that had started well before entering the store. 

“Ugh,” David said as soon as Ronnie and Twyla appeared. “The Jazzagals.” But his eyes stayed glued to the door as more women traipsed in. The women were laughing and enjoying themselves, poking through the products as Patrick watched them from behind the cash register. 

A woman with big, curled blonde hair and a sweatshirt of a cat rolling in a bed of flowers approached Patrick with an oversized smile. “Hi, Patrick. I’m so sorry I haven’t introduced myself yet. I’m Jocelyn Schitt.” She extended her hand for Patrick to shake. Patrick risked a glance at David over Jocelyn’s shoulder, who merely snorted and rolled his eyes and mouthed the _mayor’s wife_ as if anyone could actually hear him.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Ms. Schitt,” Patrick said as politely as he could. “I’ve heard about you from Stevie, of course. She said you helped with the store until I was hired.” 

“Oh, it was nothing,” Jocelyn said with a dismissive little handwave. “It was summer break anyway.” She leaned over the cash wrap, a little conspiratorially. “Between you and me, Stevie is not a great sales associate. Scared off most of the customers, poor thing, but then she was devastated by what happened.” Jocelyn seemed to think she’d said too much and promptly changed the topic. “Anyway, our little singing group was just talking about Rose Apothecary and Gwen was saying how she hadn’t been in in awhile and we all just had to come over.”

“Who the fuck is Gwen?” David asked from Patrick's side. The problem with David being a ghost was that he was deadly quiet and he snuck up on Patrick _all_ the time. Patrick would have thought he would stop being shocked when David appeared suddenly behind him, but that day was apparently not today. Patrick startled suddenly and tried to pretend it was an irascible fly that had made him jump a foot in the air. 

Jocelyn bit down on her lips to stop herself from laughing at Patrick. “The talk around the town has been what a great job you’ve been doing with the store.”

“Oh, well,” Patrick blushed, excessively pleased. “That's gratifying to hear.” 

Jocelyn nodded her head enthusiastically. She nodded with her whole body. “You have a great eye for new products. It’s like David is still here. Isn’t that right, Ronnie?”

Ronnie looked up from where she was rifling through the new coffee blends. “Yeah, you’re doing all right, I guess,” she muttered begrudgingly. 

“I’m mostly just a numbers guy,” Patrick admitted. “David left a pretty comprehensive list of the kind of products he wanted sold here. I’ve just been trying to bring his vision to life the way he would have wanted.” 

“I think David would appreciate everything you’ve done here,” Jocelyn said with a comforting pat to Patrick’s hand. Patrick would have found it somewhat condescending for someone to have presumed what David would have thought about him running his store if David hadn’t been standing right next to him, looking at him with soft, fond eyes. Patrick didn’t need anyone else to tell him that David appreciated him. He already knew that. He saw it in the way David had looked at him every day.

David cleared his throat and sidled up closer to Patrick. Patrick could feel the air around him grow slightly still and cold, which he’d come to recognize as a sign of David’s presence. It had unnerved him at first, but now he welcomed always having a slight shiver down his spine. “Where’s my mom? She’s in the Jazzagals too. Or she was.”

Patrick nodded imperceptibly and blasted Jocelyn with a bright smile. “Where’s Mrs. Rose tonight?” he asked. “I thought she was one of your members. I haven’t gotten to meet any of the Rose family yet. I had hoped they’d come visit the store sometime.”

Jocelyn’s face quickly rearranged itself into one of sympathy and understanding. Which was somehow worse than her Cheshire Cat grin. “Oh, Moira doesn’t leave her closet...I mean, her room very often, dear. The Jazzagals have had to soldier on without her voice. I think it’s a little difficult for them to come here, given everything that’s going on," Jocelyn said. "Give ‘em time. It feels too much like David is still here, you know.” 

“That’s because he is,” Twyla piped up happily from where she was smelling the bath salts. 

“No, no, sweetie,” Jocelyn called out, her voice edged with something like exasperation. “Of course David’s not literally here, but you can’t help thinking about him when you’re in here. He poured so much of himself into this store.” Twyla’s smile wavered for a second, but then she glanced at Patrick with a meaningful look and went back to sniffing the bath salts.

The Jazzagals laughed and bickered amongst themselves and asked Patrick polite questions about some of the new products for the next ten minutes. David just watched them all with shiny eyes from the corner where no one could accidentally walk through him. Patrick rang up their purchases with a tight smile and then locked the door behind them after they had all left. Patrick sighed wearily and turned to look at David. 

“I do appreciate you,” David said immediately. “You know that, right?”

“I know, David,” Patrick said, giving him a weak smile. He was so tired. Thursdays were long days despite being so good for business. 

David, surprisingly, looked tired too. “I just…” he started and ran his hands down his face like the world had become too much for him, the in-between world he straddled between the living and the dead. “I didn’t think my family would be so upset if something happened to me.” 

“There aren’t many people like you, David,” Patrick said. “A lot of people will be devastated if you never wake up.” Patrick was proud of the way his voice didn't wobble at all when he said that. He went to go count out the till and didn’t look up David. 

But Patrick felt him near, a sweet chill against his back. “There aren’t many people like you either, Patrick.” When Patrick finally turned around, David was gone. Patrick spent the rest of the night alone.

// 

The next few days passed much as they usually did. Patrick ran the store; David kept him company. On Sunday evening, Patrick was more than a little relieved that he’d have the next day off. Despite having David around to banter with, it was exhausting running the store all by himself. He wished more than once he could leave Ghost David in charge of the store while he ran to the bank or did a quick vendor pick-up, that he could have a true partner to spend his days and nights with. He couldn’t blame David, though. He’d never be anything but grateful for whatever quirk of the universe allowed him to have David like this. 

“I’m going to run over to the café to pick up my dinner,” Patrick said as they closed up that night. “I’m too tired to cook tonight.” 

David had seemed hellbent on avoiding the café for the last few weeks; Patrick assumed he didn’t want to risk running into his family again. But David agreed to walk over to the café with Patrick readily enough. Patrick didn’t say anything as he made his way across the intersection and held the door just a tad longer than necessary so David wouldn’t have to walk straight through it. David hated walking through anything solid. He claimed it gave him a stomachache. 

The café was nearly empty; the dinner rush had already come and gone. Twyla looked up from her pad of paper at the counter and gave Patrick a big, wide smile. Patrick could never resist smiling back at her. “Oh Patrick! I’ve got your order right here.” 

She started bagging up the styrofoam to-go boxes, throwing in extra packets of ketchup and napkins while telling Patrick about some out-of-town tourists who had gotten lost on their way to Thornbridge, like it was a terribly exciting and unusual occurrence. Patrick just nodded his head and eagerly took the proffered bag as soon as Twyla was done packing it. 

“There you go,” she said in that disarmingly sunny way of hers. “Hope you and David enjoy the rest of your night.” 

“The fuck?” David said from beside Patrick, gaping at Twyla.

Patrick froze, hand paused in mid-air. “What...what are you talking about, Twyla?” 

“David. He’s with you, isn’t he?” Twyla looked expectantly at Patrick like an over-exuberant labrador waiting for a treat. 

Patrick stammered. “David is in a coma, Twyla. You know that.” 

Twyla nodded her head like she was only just now realizing her mistake. “Right, well, sure, his body is in a coma, but I think we both know that a person is more than just their body.” 

Patrick laughed uncomfortably. “Can you...see David right now?”

“Oh no, no, no. It takes someone really special to see a spirit. But I can feel people’s auras. Everyone’s is distinct and unique to them. I...just feel David is always near you. There’s always two auras around you — yours and his. I thought you knew.” 

“I don’t...I’m, uh,” Patrick scratched the back of his neck, his skin prickling but then curiosity got the better of him. “What does David’s aura feel like?”

“Ugh, please,” David said, rolling his eyes in exasperation. 

“Oh,” Twyla stood up straight and looked at Patrick with a bright, beautiful smile. She looked like joy personified. “It used to feel like a tightly wound ball of yarn. Not much color, but not _not_ a color, you know what I mean?”

“No, not at all.” 

“Sometimes you’d get too close to David and his aura would just close up, shrink down. But now he’s looser, softer. There are orange and yellow bursts of color sometimes. It’s nice.” Twyla sighed and looked at the space next to Patrick where David was standing. “I think it means he’s happy.” 

//

They drove back to Patrick's apartment in strained silence. “Do you think that’s true, what Twyla said?” Patrick asked as soon as they were inside his apartment with the door closed. Patrick couldn’t let it pass without comment. It had to mean something. 

“Oh, you can’t believe a thing Twyla says,” David said somewhat defensively as he sank into his regular spot on Patrick’s couch. ”She says crazy things like that all the time.” 

“She seemed pretty certain to me,” Patrick said, setting down his dinner on his small kitchen table. He didn’t feel terribly hungry anymore. “She knew you were there. Or your aura at least.” 

David rolled his eyes. “Yeah. ‘Cause she’s crazy. I just said.” 

Patrick shook his head slowly. “I don’t...know that she is.” He tried to give David a hopeful smile. “And don’t you want someone else you could talk to besides me?” 

“She couldn’t see me or hear me,” David said. His voice was high-pitched but still somehow melancholy. “What am I supposed to do? _Feel_ things at her?” 

Patrick shrugged and chanced a quick glance back up at David. “She wasn’t completely wrong...about some stuff.” 

“Oh, yeah?” David asked with decided annoyance. “Like what?” 

“You do seem happier than you were at the beginning.” 

“Patrick —” David started. 

“And I want to believe that’s true because you make me happier too, David,” Patrick barreled on, his voice soft and hopeful. “I know you’re still in a coma and you might not wake up, but it hasn’t been completely awful being stuck with me, has it?” 

David shook his head slowly. He looked so real to Patrick. “Yes,” David finally said. “You’ve definitely made this whole ghost thing not terrible.”

“Sometimes, I feel like a terrible person because I’m glad you haven’t woken up yet,” Patrick admitted. “Because what if you do and you don’t remember me?”

David smiled, a little sadly. “I’ll remember you, Patrick.” 

Patrick thought, for the thousandth time, what it would be like to touch David, to calm the rabbiting beat of David’s heart under his palm, to feel the rumble of his laughter galloping out of his chest. He imagined, for the thousandth time, the feel of David’s curved lips on his and the prickle of David’s stubble against his cheek, the soft and hard of him, the very flesh of him. For all that Patrick got of David, it wasn’t enough. Not when Patrick wanted all of him. 

“I think we need to try harder to wake you up," Patrick said to his hands. "We kinda gave up and I was having too much fun with the way things were. But David, it’s probably time you woke up.” 

“Or time I died.” 

The words were like daggers to Patrick’s heart. He cleared his throat wetly. “That's the worst case scenario. I’m not willing to entertain those thoughts right now.” 

“So what do you propose we do then?”

“I think we need to go to your family.” Patrick inhaled. “I think we need to talk to Alexis.” 

“I’m not sure I’m ready for that.” 

“It was an accident, David.” Patrick moved instinctually to reach out for David, but came up with air. “You know it wasn’t her fault.” 

“I know,” David mumbled. 

“Maybe you can’t wake up until you’re ready to forgive her.” 

“So we're back to the 'resolving my unresolved issues will wake me up' theory?" David asked archly. "Or maybe that’s when I die and I get sucked away to heaven. I’ll spend the rest of eternity sewing angel robes with Alexander McQueen.” 

“Yeah, but imagine what awesome angel robes they are.” 

David smiled at his feet and then looked at Patrick again. His eyes were dazzling and bright. “Can I think about it?” 

“Of course,” Patrick said. “Will you stay? For the night?” 

David nodded. “I’ll stay.” 

Patrick got up to put his uneaten dinner into the refrigerator. He couldn't bear the thought of eating anything now, not when his stomach was roiling with the thought they he might lose David very soon regardless of whether they did something or not. From behind him, he heard David softly say: “Twyla wasn’t wrong. You’ve made me happier too, Patrick.”

And Patrick felt the tears warm and hot all over his cheeks and knew David was no longer his to keep.

// 

Somehow, Patrick got dressed in his warmest flannel pajama bottoms and a long sleeve shirt. The night air had grown chillier as the season slipped further into autumn; his apartment was drafty and cold most nights now. He slept hot so he never minded, but tonight was the kind of night that Patrick would have liked having another person to cuddle up with, to spread their heat from limb to limb and create a cocoon of warmth together. It didn’t quite work the same way when your bedmate was an incorporeal entity with no internal heating mechanism. 

Patrick scooted further under his covers and turned to look at David who had propped himself against the pillows on Patrick’s other side. He still had on his shoes, which in normal circumstances he would absolutely have told David was incorrect, but it had been a heavy day and Patrick couldn’t find it in himself to tease. Patrick felt the heaviness of his bones, the weight of his body in comparison to the light impression of David’s ghostly form. 

David was quiet and thoughtful. Patrick almost had to strain to hear his voice when he said, “We’ll need to convince Stevie first.” 

Patrick lifted up onto his elbows. “Convince Stevie about what?” He asked as if he didn't already know.

“That I’m still here, that you can see and hear me.” David smiled ruefully. “She’ll be pissed as hell you didn’t say anything sooner, but we need her on our side if we’re going to convince my family. My dad listens to her.” 

“If that’s what you think we need to do, then that’s what we’ll do,” Patrick said with a false amount of confidence. He knew he’d sound crazy, telling Stevie that he was being visited by a disembodied vision of her best friend who he, Patrick, had never actually met. But he was willing to be a little crazy in her estimation, if it helped David. If it made David whole again. 

David looked pale as he chewed his lip. He steadily avoided Patrick’s gaze. “I’m scared,” David finally admitted timidly. 

“I know,” said Patrick. He buried his hands in his sheets to keep his hands occupied. He hated that reaching out for David meant only touching air. 

“Will you promise me something?” David asked with a quick glance at Patrick. 

“Of course,” Patrick responded. “Anything.” 

“No matter what happens to me,” David paused, swallowed, and pushed on, “whether I wake up or not, will you take care of my store? You won’t just close it up and let Christmas World get the lease, will you?”

Patrick struggled to sit up more fully. “David, I love Rose Apothecary just as much as you do. Of course I’ll do everything I can to keep it going.” 

David nodded to himself. He seemed more ghostlike than Patrick had ever seen him before. “I just want to leave behind one good thing,” he whispered. “One thing that shows I wasn’t a total failure.” 

“You’re not a failure, David,” Patrick said, this time with absolute conviction. “You never were. Your store _is_ a success already and I’ll make sure it stays that way.” 

David tried to shrug lightly, as if Patrick’s words hadn’t meant the world to him. 

“Will you do me a favor too?” Patrick asked shyly. 

“Okay,” David said with a bit of hesitance. 

“When you wake up —” David scoffed and Patrick gave him a hard glare. “When you wake up,” he repeated for emphasis, “let me stay and run the store with you.” 

“Together?” 

Patrick nodded and looked at David hopefully. David considered Patrick for a long time like he was having a great internal debate. Slowly, a smile spread across his face and he nodded. “Yes, Patrick. I’d like to run the store together….with you.” 

Patrick breathed out a sigh of relief and settled back down into his bed. He turned to lay sideways and faced David. David mirrored his action so they were laying side-by-side, like matching parentheses. Patrick stared at David and tried to memorize everything about him just in case. Just in case this was their last night together. 

“I really wish I could touch you,” Patrick whispered. 

“I wish I could touch you, too,” David replied. And then he tried. He reached out a hand and stroked down Patrick’s arm. Patrick wanted desperately to believe he could feel the glide of David’s hand, the width of his palm over his skin, but Patrick only felt a chill spread down his spine, and goosebumps dancing down his arms. 

“I’ve been with a thousand people,” David said, softly, regretfully, “but none I’ve wanted as much as you.” 

“Me too,” Patrick said. “I mean, I want you too.” 

“I’d really like to kiss you right now,” David answered. Patrick felt the familiar cool chill against his jaw. 

“I’d really like to kiss you back,” Patrick sighed. 

“I want to see you," There was an aching longing in David's voice that Patrick had never heard before. "Can I see you, Patrick?” 

“Um...sure.” 

“Take off your shirt.” 

Patrick did. Instead of the cold rush he expected to feel, he felt flushed, on fire. David’s eyes burned into his skin, tracing every muscle, every freckle with his hungry eyes. 

“Now your pants.” 

“What?” 

“I need to see all of you, Patrick.” 

Patrick pushed his pajama bottoms down. He glanced up to look at David, fingers paused over the elastic of his boxer briefs. With a slight eye roll and encouraging nod from David, Patrick pushed those down too.

“God. Look at you. Look at all that pale skin.” 

Patrick resisted the urge to cover himself up with the blanket. “It’s fall and I don’t get out much.” 

“You’re beautiful,” David insisted. “I don’t know where I’d touch you first.” 

“I do,” Patrick said, feeling bolder. “I’d touch your legs first.”

“Mr. Brewer,” David purred in a seductively interested voice. 

“I’m maybe a little obsessed with your thighs.” 

“I’m listening.”

“They look long and graceful,” Patrick admitted, trying not to feel embarrassed laying naked and distractingly hard next to a fully clothed ghost. There was some sort of joke to be had that his first sexual experience with a man was with a ghost, but Patrick didn’t want to think about that right now. He certainly wasn’t going to mention it to David. “I love the way your skirt accentuates them. Is it a skirt, though? Is that the proper term? Maybe it’s a pants apron?” 

“Why are we still talking about my pants?” 

“Because you’re still wearing them and I’m fully naked.” 

David paused, his eyes filled with something like grief and regret. “My ghost form doesn’t have a sexual response because it’s not a body. No blood, no boner, apparently.” Patrick wanted to say something comforting or something funny that could wipe the clouded look off David’s face, but it cleared quickly and David looked back at Patrick with a small grin. “This is about you. I can still enjoy the thought of touching you and looking at you.”

“Okay,” Patrick said. His throat already felt dry and raw from need. “Tell me what you want me to do.” 

David shifted his position so he was almost hovering over Patrick. “Well, I’d start by biting your ear,” he said, low and soft in Patrick’s ear. “And then I’d work my way across your face, your jaw, your neck, until I reached your lips.” 

Patrick’s head tilted up involuntarily, like he was giving David’s imaginary wandering lips better access. Patrick looked straight into David’s brown eyes and his lips parted. He felt winded, like he was beginning a long run and needed to ration his breaths. 

“And then…?” prompted Patrick. 

“And then I’d run my hands down your side and begin my southern exploration.” David smiled at Patrick and he felt his eyes dilate with desire and his cock throb. He gripped his sheets and held on to David’s words, imagining the feel of his skin against his, the taste of his tongue, and the press of David’s fingers in the dip of the clavicle where the beat of his heart was strongest. “Gotta spend some time on your nipples, obviously.” 

Patrick felt another cool breeze sweep across his skin. His eyes closed, and his nipples, as if called to attention, hardened into peaks. 

“On to your belly button,” David said from somewhere around Patrick's stomach. His voice was low and rough now. “Are you ticklish?”

Patrick laughed, a staccato burst of air and pleasure. “Yeah, a bit.” 

“Mm,” David hummed, pleased. “I’d find the ticklish spots next. It makes for such a lovely contrast, don’t you think?”

“David, please —” 

“Not yet, honey. Wait for it.” Patrick opened his eyes and David was right there, floating above him. It was the first time David truly felt like something not normal, but paranormal. He felt surrounded on all sides by the cool burn of David’s presence. It was just like David said, like hitting a ticklish spot right during climax, the surprise of laughter ricocheting through him just as he felt the most turned on. Patrick shivered and laughed all at once. 

“Patrick,” David commanded, ready to wreck Patrick with his voice. “Touch yourself for me.” 

Patrick did as he was told. He took himself in hand easily, unabashedly. He felt his breath catch in his throat as he stroked and stroked, imagining that it was David's hand, David's mouth that surrounded him. His toes curled, seeking purchase against the soft sheen of his tangled sheets as David whispered in his ear. 

“Oh my god,” Patrick sighed, as the pressure mounted and the pleasure pooled deep in his belly. It wouldn’t be long now. 

“That’s it, good,” David cooed. “How many fingers can you take? You’d want that, wouldn’t you, my fingers inside you?”

“I...fuck...yes —” 

“Of course you do,” David’s smile was seductive and sure; he was in complete control and Patrick followed the sound of his voice like he’d lose himself without it. He wanted to let it all go and give in to the rasp of David’s gravely voice in his ear. Patrick bent his knees and his legs spread open wider and when he looked again, David had settled himself between Patrick's thighs. He almost glowed in the dim light, an angel and a devil all at once. 

Patrick chased the sound of David’s gentle voice with his hands and fingers, following David’s increasingly desperate instructions until Patrick’s breath was merely gasps, throat hoarse from the low keening that escaped between his lips before he felt the final tension and release and he went completely boneless in the way that only the most exquisite orgasm can do. And always, David watched him with electric eyes, like a starving man watching a feast from afar. 

“David, I want..”

“Shh, Patrick. It’s okay,” David whispered. “I know. I know.” 

Patrick cleaned himself up quickly. He struggled back into his boxers and pajamas and snuggled deep into the warmth of his blankets, feeling flushed and terrifyingly content, even though he knew it to be fleeting and impermanent. David stayed next to him and he really did look like he was floating now, just inches above Patrick’s bed. And in those last moments, on the razor’s edge between being awake and asleep, Patrick had the startling realization that he’d gone and fallen in love with a ghost. 

//

“Patrick! Patrick, wake up!” 

Patrick felt himself being yanked out of a blissfully deep slumber by David’s urgent, panicked voice next to him. “Whass going on?” he slurred. His brain was not working properly, his body still felt half boneless. 

“Something’s wrong,” David said. His hands were flapping in front of Patrick, urgent and insistent. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” David shook his head, his eyes widening in alarm. “I don’t feel right. I think something’s happening to my body and now this —” David waved his hands down his torso — “doesn’t feel right.” 

Patrick sat up. He felt wide awake now. “That could be a good thing,” he said. “You could be waking up.” 

David looked like he wanted to cry. “Or I could be dying.” 

“Okay,” Patrick said decisively, sliding his legs out from under the covers, “let’s get to the hospital.” 

“You still can’t get in, remember? You’re not on the list,” David reminded him. “We have to go to the motel. We have to get my family.” 

Patrick clicked on his phone to check the time. It wasn’t quite 7:00 AM. Patrick didn’t know the Roses except for what tiny little information David had given him, but he knew enough to know they weren’t morning people. They were going to need back-up. “Right. We need to get Stevie first.” 

Patrick reached for the first pair of pants he saw and yanked them on and switched his pajama shirt out for a soft blue tee. He ran into the bathroom to splash water on his face and did a quick, perfunctory brush of his teeth before declaring himself good enough. He shoved on the boots that David derisively called his mountaineering shoes and reached for his wallet and keys and coat. 

“Okay, let’s go.” 

The morning air was bitingly cold and puffs of Patrick’s breath furled out in front of him. David’s form was impervious to the cold and he seemed almost amused by Patrick’s full body shudder as he slid into the driver’s seat of his car and turned it on. 

“Where do you think Stevie is right now? The motel or her apartment?” Patrick asked. 

David considered the question and then answered: “The motel. She spends most of her time there now.” David saw Patrick’s raised and questioning look and sighed. “I visit her sometimes when I’m not haunting you. She can’t see me or hear me, though.” 

The drive to the motel was quick but deadly silent. Patrick thought about asking David if he still felt something was wrong or how frequently he visited Stevie and his family, but kept his thoughts to himself. It didn’t seem to matter, either way. They were still quiet when they arrived at the motel and both looked pensively up at the new Rosebud Motel sign above the office door. Patrick pushed open the door and David entered right behind him. Stevie was at the desk, slumped over and softly snoring. 

“Stevie?” Patrick asked tentatively. He didn’t know if she was awake or dozing, but he didn’t want to be too loud. She didn’t respond so Patrick cleared his throat and tried again, louder this time. “Stevie!”

She jumped up then, and looked around quickly. Her eyes were red and bloodshot, her hair mussed and there was a woozy, fuzzy look to her, like she’d fallen asleep at her desk drunk. Which based on everything David had said about her was a distinct possibility. 

“Patrick,” she said, voice slightly slurred. “Did you hear about David?”

Patrick was about to say something else and then registered what Stevie had said. His heart sank into his toes. “Hear what?” 

“The Roses are pulling the plug. Rose Apothecary is yours if you want it. Otherwise, they’re going to sell it.” 

“Pulling the plug. What...what do you mean?” Patrick’s voice was slightly hysterical. David said nothing, but looked wide-eyed at Stevie, mouth agape. 

“Oh, you know,” Stevie said, flicking her hair out of her face with a shake of her head. “I know you know about David. Ronnie told me you were asking around.” Stevie heaved a great sigh and stumbled off the chair and onto her feet in order to straighten out her flannel shirt and tank top as she came around the motel desk. “The doctors say that because David’s condition has not improved or changed in the last three months that he will likely never wake up. And even if he does —” Stevie’s voice faltered, “— they say he will most likely have physical and cognitive impairments that are not conducive to a fulfilling life...or whatever.” 

“So David’s family is…”

“Yup. They’re pulling the plug today. Because that’s ‘what David would have wanted’,” she air quoted.

“No, I don’t!” David shrieked from Patrick’s side. “I don’t want that at all.” 

Patrick gave David a small, sympathetic nod before turning back to Stevie, fire in his eyes. “Stevie, they can’t do that.” 

“I tried to talk them out of it, but I couldn’t convince them otherwise.” Stevie wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She looked devastated. It was hard to look at. “Once Mrs. Rose makes up her mind, it’s impossible to change it.”

David was looking at Stevie intently, almost rapturously. “You’re a good friend, Stevie Budd.” 

“We can try again,” Patrick said plaintively. “We can’t let David die like this.”

Stevie looked at Patrick suspiciously now. “What’s it to you?” she asked with narrowed eyes. “You stand to gain a lot by this.” 

“Tell her, Patrick,” David said softly. 

“Okay,” Patrick said, inhaling deeply. “This is going to sound crazy, but just hear me out.” 

Stevie gestured at him to continue. 

“I can sorta, kinda see the ghost of David Rose. Well, not a ghost technically because he’s not dead yet, of course, but more like a non-corporeal specter or apparition. A projection of his spirit unattached to his body.”

“Riiiight,” Stevie drawled out slowly. “And this has been going on for how long?” 

Patrick squinted one eye. “About two months.” He tried to count in his head, but gave it up as a bad job. Time had ceased to mean much to him once David Rose entered his life. “Almost from the very start of me working at Rose Apothecary.” 

“I see,” Stevie said, but she was clearly very unconvinced. Patrick knew she thought he was crazy. He had expected that. 

“I didn’t even know he was a ghost at first,” Patrick tried to explain. “That’s why I was asking Twyla and Ronnie about him.” Patrick glanced to his right, where David was still just looking at Stevie. “He’s...um...standing right next to me.” 

“Right here?” Stevie asked, gesturing to the space on Patrick’s left. 

“He’s...um...actually on this side of me. But yes.” 

“Well, then, tell him I send him my warmest regards.” Her voice was hard and contained something that sounded like desperate fury. 

“I can hear you,” David said at the same time that Patrick said, “He can still hear you” to Stevie. 

“Tell her best wishes,” David said, eyes trained on Stevie. 

“David says, ‘best wishes,’” Patrick told Stevie and he watched her eyes widen in surprise. Her walls were cracking, just a bit. Patrick hoped he could get them to crumble.

But then Stevie seemed to think better about getting her hopes up. “That doesn’t prove anything,” Stevie said, with a scoff. 

David threw up his hands in frustration. “We don’t have time for this!” 

“I know,” Patrick responded. “What is something that only Stevie would know and no one else could have possibly told me.” 

Stevie’s eyebrows raised at what must have looked like a very one-sided conversation on Patrick’s part. 

“I don’t know.” David started to pace, his legs making his strides long and rapid. “She forced me to go hunting with her when I first moved here. I shot a turkey.”

“Okay,” Patrick responded with a laugh and then turned to Stevie. “David says when he first moved here you took him hunting and he shot a turkey.”

“I wore head-to-toe camo. It was awful,” David shuddered. 

Patrick laughed. “Really? I would have paid money to see that.” 

Stevie was still tracking Patrick with suspicious eyes. “There were plenty of people on that trip. Ronnie was there. Roland too. You could have heard that from them.” 

David shook his head and then looked at Patrick with a pre-emptive wince. “Okay. No judgment. Stevie and I got high and had sex in the love room. There are red satin sheets and mirrors on the ceiling. We hooked up a few times.” 

Patrick knew it was stupid, but he felt jealous. Not that Stevie and David had slept together, because David had dropped enough hints for him to have concluded that their relationship went beyond the normal bounds of friendship. No, he was jealous because Stevie had gotten to touch David, had probably taken for granted every hug, every nudge, every accidental brush of his body against hers and never recognized it for the absolute gift that it was. 

Patrick swallowed down his resentment and repeated David’s words to Stevie who squinted at Patrick, less suspiciously but it was still there. “Lots of people know we hooked up. Ted announced it at a party that included Twyla and I know you're friends with her.” 

Patrick gave David a panicked look. David rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and groaned. “Ugh, fine. I didn’t want to pull this out, because it’s super embarrassing for her — not me — but Stevie has a birthmark on her left hip right here —” David pointed to a spot high up on his leg — “and it recently started growing hairs which she wanted to tweeze. She made me hold the mirror for her.” David smiled triumphantly. “Oh, and one time, her vibrator broke and she used a cucumber instead.”

“I can’t say that to her,” Patrick hissed. He could feel himself already blushing. These were not the sorts of things he talked about with his friends. 

“Just tell her the birthmark thing then.” David insisted, so Patrick did. 

Stevie’s entire face shut down. “Are you some kind of creep?” 

“No!” 

“Have you been spying on me somehow? How could you possibly know that?”

“That’s the point!” Patrick cried in frustration. “I couldn’t possibly know that. I barely know you! But David knows that so maybe, just maybe, I’m telling you the truth!” 

Stevie shook her head with a sharp twist and exhaled forcefully. “Okay. If David is here, what was my great aunt’s name and where did we scatter her ashes?” 

David looked at Stevie morosely, and said, “Oh, Stevie.” He told Patrick exactly what to say. This time Patrick knew it was going to work. 

“Her name was Maureen. You inherited the motel from her. You and David scattered her ashes next to a parking lot off Highway 21 and he told you then that you weren’t going to be anything like your aunt.” 

Stevie choked out a sob. He’d never see her face contain so much emotion. “David. He’s really here.”

“Yes,” Patrick said and he flashed a triumphant smile in David’s direction. “You’ve got to help us, Stevie. We need to convince the Roses that there’s still hope. They won’t believe me, but they trust you. David is still alive. He’ll wake up again. I know it. He just needs more time.” 

“Fuck.” Stevie wiped surreptitiously under her eyes and took a deep breath. “This is batshit crazy, but let’s do this.” 

//

Even if Patrick hadn't gotten that one glimpse of the Roses at the café, it would have been instantly apparent to Patrick that the Roses were David’s family. David had so clearly inherited his dramatics from his mother and his eyebrows from his father. Alexis, on the other hand, was beautiful in the same way that David was handsome, but from the worried looks David kept directing at her, Patrick knew that Alexis was not normally so quiet or withdrawn. She looked more ghostlike than David did at the moment. 

The Roses were thankfully all awake despite the early hour. They had planned to go to the hospital early to visit David one last time to say good-bye before the doctors “pulled the plug”. Patrick didn’t know what kind of machines David’s body had been hooked up to to keep him alive thus far, and David had never volunteered the information. 

Patrick was relieved that he and Stevie had gotten to them before they left. Patrick was also relieved that Stevie had taken control of the situation. The Roses were all looking at Patrick suspiciously — he was a complete stranger to them, after all — but Stevie had explained that she had hired Patrick to run Rose Apothecary and that he had some important information the Roses needed to hear. 

Eight pairs of eyes were laser focused on him now, waiting to hear what he had to say. David was quiet next to him, looking at each face before him, his own face painted with emotion. 

“I didn’t think I’d miss them so much,” David said quietly. “Please, Patrick. We’re running out of time.” David moved to sit on the bed next to Alexis. He looked like he wanted to hold her hand or give her a hug. 

“Right,” Patrick said, more to himself than the Roses. Stevie gestured at him to speed things up. “Right. So the thing is, I can see David’s ghost. He’s not dead.” He quickly went on when Moira looked like she was going to launch into hysterics. “It’s just his spiritual projection or something. Anyway, that’s not really important. What is important is that David is not dead, and he doesn’t want to die, and you can’t pull the plug.” 

Moira looked at Patrick like he was a bug who had just splattered his guts all over her windshield. “Why have you come to agitate us in our hour of lamentation?” she wailed.

Johnny rubbed his hands together in consternation. “Patrick, was it?” He cleared his throat and approached Patrick hesitantly. “I think we would all like to believe what you say is true, but you have to understand why we simply can’t accept it.” 

“All due respect, sir, but it’s the truth.” 

Stevie looked grim-faced but determined. “Do the thing, the thing where you tell them stuff only David could know.” 

Patrick looked to David and gave a tiny nod of encouragement. David stood up from his spot next to Alexis and paced the room, behind the table where his mother was sitting. David looked almost queasy. “We were never that close!” he said. “Until we moved here, we were never that close. There’s so much about my family I don’t know.” 

“Anytime now, Patrick.” Stevie said. 

“My dad bought the town for me as a joke,” David blurted out.

“Wait, you own the town?” 

“Focus, Patrick. My dad gives terrible birthday presents. He bought me a basketball court one year. Can you picture me playing basketball?” 

Patrick stifled a laugh. “Okay, what else?” 

David looked up at the wall currently festooned with a variety of wigs that looked like a horde of crawling tribbles. “Mom says Cindy is her favorite wig, but it’s actually Robin because that’s the wig she was wearing when she fell down the elevator shaft on _Sunrise Bay_ and was nominated for her first Daytime Emmy award.” 

“Wow. Okay,” Patrick said. He turned to David’s parents. “David says Mr. Rose gives terrible birthday gifts like the deed to this town and basketball courts. I think there’s more to that story, but anyway. And Mrs. Rose’s favorite wig is named Robin because she was wearing it when she won — “

“Nominated,” David interrupted.

“— was nominated for a Daytime Emmy.” 

Johnny and Moira blinked up at Patrick and then looked at each other, mouths open but soundless. 

“What about me?” Alexis asked from the bed. “Did David say anything about me?” She sounded both hopeful and frightened. 

“Tell her that I forgive her,” David said gently, his eyes locked on Alexis. “Tell her none of it was her fault.” 

Patrick’s heart clenched tight in his chest. Because David was brave and he was good. And Patrick thought a person like that deserved to live, because the world was better with him in it. “David says he doesn’t blame you for the accident,” Patrick said to Alexis as tenderly as he could given that they’d just met. “He says he forgives you.” 

“He said that?” Alexis asked, her wide, red-rimmed eyes sharp on Patrick’s face. “David really said that?” Patrick nodded and Alexis' face crumpled with relief. 

“Alexis, dear, we all told you that you have been acquitted of any wrongdoing,” Moira said. She turned her penetrating eyes to Patrick. “I am inclined to believe we can trust this young man’s word. I am, of course, the most well-acquainted with the vagaries of the paranormal given my storyline on season thirteen of _Sunrise Bay_ where Vivian Blake was visited by the ghost of her long dead twin brother.” 

“I thought Vivian Blake had a twin sister,” Alexis said. 

“Oh, so she did. They were triplets,” Moira replied.

Stevie seemed to feel things had gone off the rails by that point and needed to get them back on track. “Great. So we’ve established that Patrick is the Whoopi Goldberg to David’s Patrick Swayze and he’s telling the truth. So we need to get to the hospital _now_.”

That seemed to spur everyone into action. Moira began to shout for her shoes, Johnny just kept patting down his breast pockets looking for his wallet and keys, Stevie was throwing what appeared to be thick medical files into a messenger bag, and David was chiding them all for not moving fast enough, not that any of them could hear him. 

Amidst the confusion and the chaos, Alexis stood up and leveled Patrick with an oddly perceptive look. “Why go to all this trouble to help us?” she asked Patrick. “Why do you care about David so much?” 

Everyone froze and looked at Patrick, silently waiting for his answer. 

“Because I love him,” Patrick said with absolute certainty. He looked over Alexis’s shoulder to meet David’s eyes, which were wide and glittering. “It’s true. I love you.” 

“Patrick, I —” David said with a voice full of emotion, and then he disappeared with a small but resounding pop. 

“Where’d he go?” Patrick felt his whole body go numb with shock. 

“Who?” Alexis asked. 

“David!”

“He’s not here anymore?” Stevie asked.

“No! He just disappeared right in front of me. He’s never done that before.”

Stevie shoved Patrick toward the door. “We have to go. Now. Go, go, go.” 

They all stumbled out of the motel room in a hurry and Patrick slammed into his car with Stevie on his heels. “Come with us, Alexis,” Stevie called as she opened Patrick’s passenger door. “Mr. and Mrs. Rose, you follow us in your car.” 

Alexis and Stevie hadn’t even finished buckling their seat belts when Patrick skidded out of the gravel parking lot and sped down the highway toward the hospital. He just hoped they wouldn’t be too late. 

//

As Patrick sat in the waiting room with Stevie — only the Roses had been allowed entrance beyond the double doors of the ICU — he considered all the possibilities since David had popped out of existence: either David was dead or he was awake. Since Patrick was decidedly against even considering the first option, he decided to dissect the second for all its feasible scenarios. One, David was awake and remembered everything about his time as Patrick’s personal ghost and wanted him to stay because David loved him back. Two, David was awake and remembered nothing, and would let Patrick continue to work at the store where Patrick would remain in unrequited love with David and David would find Patrick decidedly creepy. Three, David was awake and remembered nothing, and would send Patrick packing. Four, David was awake, but mute and Patrick would have to break through all his traumatized barriers to help him speak again. 

Maybe he’d watched too many episodes of _Downton Abbey_ with David.

In any case, the prospects didn’t look good. If Patrick were honest with himself, he’d never really thought he was going to get a happy ending. David had been severely injured in the accident. Even if his physical injuries, the cuts and bruises, the broken bones, and shattered ribs had been healed by his time in the coma, who knew what had happened to his brain. Who knew if he could walk or talk or feed himself anymore. Maybe waking up wasn’t David’s best option, anyway. 

Stevie took to nail biting to pass the time and seemed enthusiastic in pursuit of her new hobby. Her nails were ragged and red and cut down to the quick. Her mouth twisted around her thumb, brow furrowed with worry and something like despair. Patrick alternated between tapping a staccato beat against his thigh with his fingers or shaking his legs up and down. His heart tried to keep time as it kept pumping blood to all his extremities. 

“It’s taking a long time, isn’t it?” Patrick asked finally, eyes glued to the doors. 

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Stevie said immediately, but she sounded anything but sure. 

“What if he doesn’t remember me?” Patrick asked, giving voice to his worst fear. 

“Then you make him remember,” Stevie said decisively. 

Patrick did feel a little uplifted by the fact that Stevie seemed to be on his side now. “Don’t you think I’m a little bit crazy?” 

“David likes a little bit of crazy,” Stevie said. “You’ll be good for him. Besides, he can’t be more annoying in person than he was as a ghost.” 

"We used to joke that I was David's human sherpa," Patrick said. He spoke lightly, as if enough time had passed that he could already find the whole experience whimsically charming when he felt the exact opposite. "That maybe the trick to expelling David from his ghost dimension was trying to make everything right before he could wake up." Patrick glanced at Stevie briefly and now his voice was serious. "I think it was forgiving Alexis. I think that's what did it."

Stevie made a sound that could only be categorized as a snort. 

"You don't think forgiving Alexis was important?"

"How much did David tell you about himself?" Stevie asked.

"A lot," Patrick said. "We had a lot of time to talk."

"Then you should know that there is nothing that Alexis could do that David wouldn't forgive."

"Oh."

"Besides, that wasn't what did it," Stevie said.

"Then what did?"

"You," Stevie said succinctly. And then followed it up with a sarcastic, "duh."

"But I wasn't his unfinished business," Patrick objected. It really seemed important to stress that point to Stevie, who was just looking at Patrick like he was a giant idiot.

"David isn't an easy person to love. Or he thinks he isn't an easy person to love because those words don't come easy to people like me or the Roses." Stevie shrugged eloquently with one shoulder. "Look, if everything you've said is true, if David was stuck in an in-between world because he didn't know whether he wanted to live or die, then it was never about forgiveness. It was about knowing he's loved, about knowing that his life is still worth living. That's what you gave him."

Patrick didn’t get to respond to that because Johnny, clearly the elected family emissary, came through the double doors and approached Stevie and Patrick with an unreadable face before he broke out into a pained but hopeful smile. 

“He’s awake. He woke up right before we got here. The doctors say it's a miracle.” 

Patrick and Stevie exhaled twins sighs of relief. 

“Can we go see him now?” Patrick asked, flushed and desperate to see David in the actual flesh, to touch his arm, twine their fingers together, maybe kiss his cheek when no one was looking. 

Johnny’s eyes were soft but downcast. He gestured to Stevie. “He’s asked for Stevie, but I’m sorry, Patrick. He’s still a bit confused and disoriented. He...uh...didn’t have any recollection of a person named Patrick.” 

Stevie’s mouth gaped open, her eyes trained on Patrick with sympathy. Patrick had thought he had prepared himself for this but he’d been wrong. 

“He needs time,” Patrick said. He’d always been good at shoving his feelings down deep and not talking about them. David was the opposite. It was one of the things he loved about him. “I should get back to town anyway. Plenty to do at the store. Just tell David that Rose Apothecary is in good hands until he’s ready to come back.” 

Patrick turned on his heel and was gone before Stevie or Johnny could see the tears in his eyes. But before he got on the elevator, he saw the implacable face of Nurse Amber, sending him a gentle nod of surprising solidarity and support. 

//

Patrick was restocking the hand-bound journals and spiral notebooks next to the cash wrap and felt exhausted down to his very molecules. He hadn’t slept much in the weeks since David had woken up, but he’d made a promise to David and it was one that he intended to keep. Working was better than staring up at the cracks in the ceiling above his bed or replaying the events of their last night together in his head. 

Stevie stopped by occasionally to give him updates. David was sitting up and eating on his own. David was talking. David was meeting with physical therapists. David had gotten out of bed and walked the whole length of the hospital hallway. David was coming home to continue his recovery. Stevie never mentioned if David had remembered him and Patrick never asked. 

The bell above the door chimed and Patrick looked over his shoulder to greet his first customer of the day. And there, bracketed by the light from the door, was David Rose. Patrick registered quickly how different he looked than the ghost he’d come to know so well — a little thinner, a little more subdued, dark circles under his eyes, and a worried mouth — but it was still unmistakably David Rose. He was wearing a new outfit, light washed jeans with artful splotches of black and a ribbed stitching around the knee, a leopard print sweater, and white sunglasses. He wasn’t wearing a coat even though the temperatures had dropped to freezing overnight. 

David removed his sunglasses in one swift move. “Hi,” he said breathlessly.

“Hey.” Patrick set the box down and turned fully to face David. He was even more beautiful in the flesh than Patrick had dreamed.

“I’m David Rose.” 

Patrick stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I know.”

David looked around the store with appraising eyes. “The store looks good.”

“I’m really glad to hear you think that.” Patrick tried to smile at David and failed. 

“I see the plungers are out here...in the front."

Patrick laughed hollowly and swallowed down the lump in his throat. “Yeah. It’s a bit of an inside joke.” Patrick took a step forward. “David, do you remember anything? Like me. Do you remember me?” 

“Patrick,” David took a step forward too and smiled like an angel. “I remember everything.” 


	3. you, just like a dream

David couldn’t remember anything about the accident at first. Even the weeks before the crash were fuzzy and disjointed when he tried to recall them. That was normal, the doctors told David, the mind’s way of protecting itself from trauma. They might come back, they told him, or they might not. David was happy to keep the memories at bay for as long as possible; the damage had been done, even if he couldn’t remember it, after all. 

But it came back to him in snatches: an unfettered laugh, an upturned mouth, an open palm. He’d been told many comatose patients had vivid dreams, that it might be difficult to re-orient himself to the real world after so long in a dream realm. The coma survivors of the internet reported nightmares and flashes of terror, but all David felt from his visions was an inexorable feeling of safety and happiness and love. He’d never felt anything like it in real life, so he assumed it was just his brain playing tricks on him, creating some beautiful fictional world to override the pain.

But they kept coming in larger and clearer chunks. Riding in an unfamiliar car, a beautiful man asleep in a bed, the store decorated for Halloween. David had no idea what they meant until Stevie mentioned, almost flippantly and offhand, that she’d hired a guy named Patrick Brewer to run the store in his absence. It was like a hidden window had been thrown open and his ghost life seemed to rewind right before his eyes. And there, in the center of it all, was Patrick. 

He’d been home from the hospital for a few days before he finally convinced Stevie to take him to Rose Apothecary. He had to see the store — and Patrick — with his own eyes. He'd missed the store like an amputee misses a phantom limb. And the store was beautiful. Well-tended and painstakingly cared for like a calling card of love addressed just to David. David watched Patrick move around the store with an intimate familiarity from the sidewalk and it was breathtaking to behold. Soon, he would touch Patrick, kiss his lips, ask him to stay. Because any person crazy enough to fall in love with him while he was a ghost was a person David would be crazy not to love back. He knew how to do that now; how to recognize love and give it in return. 

So David opened the door and felt no fear. 

//

Patrick kissed like David had expected: warm and gentle and with his whole heart. David never wanted it to end. But he pulled away, slowly, and looked deep into Patrick’s eyes with a fond smile. “I just need to do something real quick. One sec,” David said.

He turned to the display of toilet plungers next to the front table, collected them by their handles with an air of supreme distaste, and dragged them into the backroom.

The sound of Patrick’s joyous laughter followed him all the way there.


End file.
